According to the Washington Post and the NTSB, a single malfunction caused the train accident that killed nine commuters and injured dozens more. The fact that a single failure in the largely automatic train system is extremely troubling to many – as a lack of safety redundancy puts only one broken part between a safe commute and another tragic metro accident. The NTSB will probably officially announce that a new software system that regularly checks on hardware functionality should be required. The new system would “continuously evaluate the validity of real-time track occupancy data.”

The NTSB does not expect to officially finish its investigation of the DC commuter train wreck for several more months.